Australia

I went to see this the other day with my daughter. We both knew that nobody else in our family would want to see it, but we had each other. Considering it was a late-afternoon performance on a Tuesday there were more people there than I'd expected, so others obviously had the same idea.
It had had terrible reviews in most of the papers, and Australian critics had savaged it apparently, for trotting out every single Australain cliche in the book However, all these reviews completely missed the point. The people who did like it, including (of course) my favourites, Mark Kermode on FiveLive and the Observer's Philip French got it immediately. A film can be rubbish on one level, but that doesn't in itself make it bad, or unwatchable. Yes, Australia does trot out every Australian cliche in the book, but it remains hugely watchable and enjoyable. It's the way Lurhmann says all the way through, lets not go over the top, lets go way beyond that. The final scene, in which Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman are reunited and the half -Aborigine boy goes off into the outback with the native shaman to learn the ways of his ancestors has the soundtrack of, get this, Elgar's Nimrod as a soundtrack, surely the most glaringly inappropriate use of music ever committed to celluloid. But it works, well, sort of, and anyway, it puts a smile on the audience's face.
We have the outback, cattle drives, the carpet bombing of Darwen in WWII, the lot, all ladled on with a huge spade. Austarlia itself is depicted in all its glory, and, having been there for one unforgettable trip, I can vouch for the wonder of the landscape. The country itself is the star, which I suppose was the intention.
Kidman and Jackman enter wholeheartedly into the spirit of the film - Kidman, impossibly, scarily thin, bustles around elegantly, and her transformation into a rancher is more convincing than her earlier elegant English county persona. Jackman is suitably taciturn and surly, and the little boy is suitably charming. All in all, a good evening out - very satisfying.